Croatia , officially Republic of Croatia, Country, northwestern Balkans, southeastern Europe. Area: 21,851 sq mi (56,594 sq km). Population: (2024 est.) 3,696,000. Capital: Zagreb. The people are predominantly South Slavs, mainly Croats and a small but significant Serb minority. Language: Croatian (official). Religions: Christianity (predominantly Roman Catholic [Croats]; also Eastern Orthodox [Serbs]); also Islam. Currency: kuna. Croatia includes the traditional regions of Dalmatia and Istria, located along the Adriatic coast, and Croatia-Slavonia, in the northern arm of the country. The central mountain belt contains part of the Dinaric Alps. The northeast is a fertile agricultural area; sugar beets, corn (maize), and wheat are grown, and pigs and cattle are raised. The mountain belt is known for fruit, and the farms of Istria and Dalmatia produce grapes and olives. Important industries include food processing, wine making, and the production and refining of petroleum. Croatia is a multiparty republic with a unicameral legislature. Its head of state is the president, and the head of government is the prime minister. Slavs arrived in the western Balkans in the 6th and 7th centuries. An independent Croatian state developed in the 9th century and was ruled by native kings until 1102, when the crown passed into the hands of the Hungarian dynasty. Some institutions of separate Croatian statehood were maintained, however. The area associated with the name Croatia shifted gradually north and west as its territory was eroded, first with the loss of Dalmatia to Venice by 1420 and then as a result of Ottoman conquests in the 16th century, when the remainder of Croatia came under the rule of the Austrian Habsburgs. Between 1699 and 1815 the Habsburgs gained control of other Croatian lands, but they remained administratively divided. After the reconstitution of the Habsburg empire as Austria-Hungary in 1867, Dalmatia and Istria were ruled by Vienna and Croatia-Slavonia by Hungary. In 1918, after the defeat of Austria-Hungary in World War I, Croatia joined other South Slav territories to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which was renamed Yugoslavia in 1929. During World War II the occupying Germans and Italians set up an independent Croatian state, embracing Croatia-Slavonia, part of Dalmatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the war Croatia was reincorporated as a republic into communist Yugoslavia. Croatia declared its independence in 1991, sparking insurrections by the republic’s Serbs and occupation by the Yugoslav army. Croatia retook most of the Serb-occupied regions by 1995 and regained full control of its territory by 2002. The country joined NATO in 2009.
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